Establishing a Palestinian state would protect Israel's status as Jewish, democratic but also bring B-G airport within range of RPGs.

The ramifications of the upheaval sweeping the region for the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been a subject of dispute. Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu has taken the understandable view that, with hitherto stable
regimes suddenly in varying stages of deterioration, Israel must be particularly
resolute in its demand for ironclad security arrangements in any settlement with
its neighbors.

Establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel would
end Israel’s rule over the Palestinians and protect its status as both Jewish
and democratic – two cardinal interests – but it would also bring Ben-Gurion
Airport within range of a shoulder-held anti-aircraft rocket launcher located in
Palestinian-controlled territory. Israel must know that it would be handing over
control to a Palestinian leadership that is both committed to reconciliation and
genuinely stable; we cannot afford a repeat of the disaster of Hamas-controlled
Gaza.

Internationally the developments of recent months are sometimes
viewed in a different light. Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, for instance,
told The Jerusalem Post’s Herb Keinon last week that now was the time for bold
peace initiatives on Israel’s part: “I would now find it even more imperative to
try to reach out to the Palestinian side of things... It is difficult to think
it will be easier to make a peace agreement five years from now than five months
from now.”

Ruprecht Polenz, chairman of the German parliament’s Foreign
Affairs Committee, in explaining to the New York Times his country’s decision to
support a UN Security Council Resolution denouncing Israeli settlements as
“illegal,” said that this did not indicate that Germany no longer defended the
security of Israel. “It means,” said Polenz, “that Chancellor Angela Merkel is
trying to explain to the Israeli government that with the extraordinary changes
taking place across the Middle East, time is not on its side when it comes to
resolving the conflict with the Palestinians.”

President Barack Obama
told close to 50 representatives in a meeting at the White House with the
Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations last week that while he
understood Israeli security concerns, he also felt that progress in peace talks
with the Palestinians now could ease the Jewish state’s international
isolation. Unable to ignore international pressure, Netanyahu is
reportedly in the process of formulating a new peace initiative whose parameters
have yet to be announced.

UNFORTUNATELY, NO remotely equivalent pressure
is being brought to bear upon the Palestinian leadership. Nor has the
Palestinian Authority taken steps to facilitate the renewal of substantive
talks. The opposite is true. “We want the EU countries to recognize a
Palestinian unity government that would include Hamas,” PA negotiator Nabil
Sha’ath said in Cairo Monday.

Instead of highlighting to its own people
the imperative to come to viable peace terms, and encouraging Hamas to recognize
Israel, renounce terrorism and accept past peace agreements – the three
international conditions for the legitimization of Hamas – the Fatahcontrolled
PA is now pressuring the EU to soften its demands. It may believe that the EU
might currently favor some flexibility regarding the recognition of Hamas in the
ostensible cause of advancing the peace process.

Facilitating Hamas’s
legitimization and paving the way for a unity government would also boost
Fatah’s waning popularity by satisfying the Palestinian people’s demand to end
the rift between Gaza and the West Bank. But this is hardly the responsible
Palestinian leadership with whom Israel aspires to sign a lasting accord. And it
is highly disturbing that Hamas – which states in its charter that “peace
initiatives, the so-called peaceful solutions, and the international conferences
to resolve the Palestinian problem, are all contrary to the beliefs of the
Islamic Resistance Movement” – enjoys such popularity among
Palestinians.

It is wrongheaded and dangerous for the EU, the Quartet or
the US to pressure Israel to reach a rushed deal with a Palestinian leadership
that has done precious little to prepare its people for peace and is now pushing
to legitimize a terrorist organization. Instead, the PA must be encouraged to
offer a sane alternative to Hamas that assiduously promotes reconciliation with
Israel, and freedom, human rights and democracy for Palestinians – aspirations
that are suddenly, encouragingly, in such high demand in this region. The PA
should also be expected to return to peace talks in which Israel’s legitimate
security concerns are addressed without preconditions.

This would go a
long way toward creating an atmosphere in which a lasting peace might be
achieved. The accord we need with the Palestinians, as recent developments in
the region illustrate, needs to be negotiated with a stable, peaceably minded
leadership, and one that reflects the will of its people too.

Sites Of Interest

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